1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a receiving apparatus for receiving and displaying pay display information transmitted from a broadcasting station or the like. More particularly, the present invention is preferably applied to a receiver for FM multiplex broadcast information multiplexed on FM radio broadcast waves, but is not limited thereto.
2. Description of the Related Art
Services have recently been provided through the medium of FM (frequency modulation) broadcast waves for displaying service information in a display provided at a receiver, by multiplexing and transmitting service information such as character information on FM broadcast waves carrying audio information. This service is called an FM character multiplex broadcast and it is being put in wide use as visual information radio.
More specifically, an FM broadcasting station at the transmission side transmits radio waves multiplexing characters, numerals and other display information on ordinary FM broadcast waves, and the multiplexed waves are received by an FM radio receiver with a liquid crystal display (LCD) at the reception side, and FM broadcast waves and display information such as characters and numerals are demultiplexed, and the display information is converted into character codes and displayed on the liquid crystal display, so as to be visually presented to a user. As a result, the user can visually recognize, for example, the weather forecast and traffic information by characters. In this FM character multiplex broadcasting, aside from presentation of free information service, pay service is considered for specific information.
When presenting pay service information to the user in such FM character multiplex broadcasting, the company serving the FM character multiplex broadcasting must somehow collect a fee from the user. If, however, collection was made by means of a monthly payment contract between the company and the user, some delay in payment would be likely to occur, and management of the listeners would be complicated.
From the standpoint of the user, on the other hand, if it were required to pay the fee to the company or through the bank or the like, the burden on the user would be heavy. Moreover, in the case of FM character multiplex broadcasting, since the FM broadcast waves are utilized to provide a pay service information, it would be practically impossible to stop presentation of service information only to delinquent listeners.